This book discusses 19 epidemics associated with a broad range of wars, blends medical knowledge, demographics, and geographic and medical information with historical and military insights, and reveals the complex relationship between epidemics and wars throughout history.

Part I. Contested epidemics during well-known conflicts : introduction / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Plague of Athens : a fate more terrible than the Spartans, 430-426 BCE / Christopher Howell -- The Antonine Plague : unknown death within the Roman Empire, 165-180 BCE / Brenda Thacker -- English sweating sickness and the Battle of Bosworth : misfortune or retribution, 1485 CE / Edwin Wollert -- Part II. Bacterial epidemics in the context of wars : introduction / Rebecca M. Seaman -- The Black Death and nation-state wars of the 14th century : envrionment, epigenetics, excess, and expiation, 1346-1450 / Sarah Douglas -- Typhus : Napoleon's tragic invasion of Russia, the War of 1812 / John Jennings White III -- Cholera : dread disease of the Crimean War, 1854-1855 / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Typhoid fever : failure in the midst of victory in the Spanish-American War, 1898 / Hilary Green -- Diphtheria in the Tajikistan War : circumventing post-World War II medical advances, 1992-1994 / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Part III. Viral epidemics in the context of wars : introduction / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Smallpox : ensuring the destruction of armies in Colonial New Spain and Peru, 1518-1625 / Angela Thompson -- Smallpox : ensuring the survivial of an army in Revolutionary America, 1775-1783 / Arthur Boylston -- Yellow fever : unexpected ally in the Haitian Revolution, 1802-1803 / Christopher Davis -- Measles in World War I : pestilence within mobilization camps and transport ships, 1915-1919 / Sonia Valencia and Rebecca M. Seaman -- Influenza during World War I : the Great Flu Pandemic, 1916-1919 / Jillion Becker -- Colonialism and war as drivers of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990-2003 / Wesley Renfro -- Mumps : lasting remnant of the Bosnian War, 1992-2012 / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Part IV. Epidemics of mixed origins during wartime : introduction / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Malaria : continuing pestilence from World War II to the Vietnam War, 1939-1975 / Larry Grant -- Dysentery in the American Civil War : an inverse force multiplier, 1861-1865 / Joshua M. Seaman -- Pneumonia in the American Civil War : death knell of the sick and invalid, 1861-1865 / Rebecca M. Seaman -- Epilogue : epidemics and wars in the context of historical inquiry / Rebecca M. Seaman.